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from the bills-have-serial-numbers-so-only-use-change dept.
Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:
Many Austrians value their privacy and won't accept someone to keep track how many beers they drink. It may sound like a strange thing to enshrine in a country’s constitution: the right to pay cash. But a debate on whether to do just that has entered Austria’s election campaign, shining a light on the country’s love of cold, hard currency.
The Austrian People’s Party (ÖVP, EPP-affiliated) recently made the suggestion as part of its campaign for a parliamentary election in late September, for which it has a commanding poll lead. This led to other parties — though sceptical of the ÖVP’s proposal — vaunting their commitment to protecting cash, with the centre-left Social Democrats (SPÖ) demanding an end to fees levied at cashpoints.
And it is not hard to see why all major parties see protecting cash as a vote-winner.
“In Austria, attitudes change slowly,” an employee of Weinschenke, a burger restaurant in downtown Vienna, told AFP. The woman in her 30s, who only gave her name as Victoria, says she prefers to use cash because “you don’t leave a trace”.
Financial law expert Werner Doralt says Austrians put a high value on privacy and are wary of anything that could be used to keep tabs on them, such as card transactions. “If for example I go shopping, and it’s recorded exactly how much schnapps I’ve bought, that’s an invasion of my privacy,” he says.
A recent survey conducted by the ING bank in 13 European countries, Australia and the US, showed Austrians were the most resistant to the idea of giving up cash payments.
Just 10 percent of those surveyed in Austria said they could imagine doing without cash, compared to a European average of 22%. According to European Central Bank data compiled in 2017, cash accounted for 67% of money spent at points of sale in Austria, compared to just 27% in the Netherlands. Even in neighbouring Germany, another country known for its attachment to cash, the rate is only 55%.
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Thursday September 05 2019, @03:40PM (17 children)
Call it North Australia or something...
The confusion really wears me down.
I do hope this picks up steam. We need cash, and paper ballots. These electronic contraptions are too frail for something so critical and basic.
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Thursday September 05 2019, @03:50PM (4 children)
Grip that buggy-whip tight... good old cash just isn't going to mean what it used to in a world of free communication, ultra high definition video, optical recognition, etc.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2, Touché) by fustakrakich on Thursday September 05 2019, @04:10PM (3 children)
Still works when the power goes off, unlike your ultra high definition video, optical recognition, etc.
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Thursday September 05 2019, @04:37PM (2 children)
No argument about the vulnerability of technology to disruption of infrastructure... but, you gotta ask a few other questions:
How easy is it becoming to forge your paper currency?
How long does the infrastructure have to be disrupted before paper currency loses its value?
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Saturday September 07 2019, @05:21PM (1 child)
None of that matters. You still use what is best.
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Sunday September 08 2019, @03:00PM
What is best is all a matter of circumstance. When the world is humming along normally, swipe to pay with a cellphone is certainly convenient, and I don't really give a ---- who knows what and when I buy at the grocery. Further, if I've got a rich complete history of visible tracked purchases, the one odd cash purchase here or there is much more likely to be overlooked (assuming I don't leave a ton of other clues...)
Get a little solar storm and lots of satellite linked credit card systems stop working (including phone swipe-to-pays...)
Get a full on power outage and most retailers around here are basically unable to function, even with cash - products are no longer labeled with prices, even with prices provided cashiers aren't trained to sum columns of numbers accurately, or calculate change.
Stop the fuel trucks for a week and gasoline is no longer valued in dollars but in need... if you need to get from A to B and have just enough gas to do it, you're not selling that gas at basically any price.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by janrinok on Thursday September 05 2019, @04:45PM
(Score: 3, Funny) by Hartree on Thursday September 05 2019, @05:15PM (1 child)
"Call it North Australia"
Will they sell Stroon?
(Score: 3, Funny) by deimtee on Friday September 06 2019, @03:10AM
Yeah, but we're keeping the littul kittons.
If you cough while drinking cheap red wine it really cleans out your sinuses.
(Score: 2) by looorg on Thursday September 05 2019, @05:25PM (5 children)
Can't we just rename Australia instead? We knew about Austria first. We could call it Oz or just "downthere" or Downunder or something instead.
(Score: 4, Funny) by PartTimeZombie on Thursday September 05 2019, @09:26PM (4 children)
It should be know as "Arrrghgetthatoffme"!
(Score: 4, Funny) by fido_dogstoyevsky on Thursday September 05 2019, @11:11PM (3 children)
Just "Arrr-" because you very rarely hear the whole word.
It's NOT a conspiracy... it's a plot.
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Friday September 06 2019, @12:36AM (2 children)
One country has "drop-bears" and the other does not. Rather like how Kansas or Arkykansas has Runaway1956, but not both.
(BTW, etymologically, "austra" means "south", from the Latin "austral".)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 06 2019, @07:09AM (1 child)
It's all greek to me.
(Score: 3, Touché) by aristarchus on Friday September 06 2019, @08:49AM
Latin, you ferkin Anglish sprechen barbarian! Oh, how the liberal arts have fallen!
(Score: 2) by jb on Friday September 06 2019, @09:00AM (2 children)
No, but as an Australian (not an Austrian), if this proposal actually gets up I think we should invite Austria to annex our vast & beautiful land ... as they seem to have far more sensible politicians than we do.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by fido_dogstoyevsky on Friday September 06 2019, @11:06AM
So... we just put out a tender to outsource Parliament?
It's NOT a conspiracy... it's a plot.
(Score: 2, Touché) by fustakrakich on Friday September 06 2019, @01:09PM
as they seem to have far more sensible politicians than we do.
And they have more experience in annexation of territory.
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..